had a phone interview and in person interview with two execs which i thought went fairly well. then they ghosted me and until the recruiter reached out. rather than contact my references they reached out to their old boys network at a local university where i had worked over twelve years ago in another career. i know who they contacted as they mentioned the fellow's name in the interview. it was not someone with whom i worked directly. i was told in a pretty smarmy way via the recruiter that the 3rd party's opinion of me was pretty egregious. i was left feeling pretty bad about the whole experience having my reputation smeared by their biased backdoor reference with no opportunity to state my case. i figure i'm black balled in the philly health care market so i have that going for me.